Next shares jumped on Thursday after the retailer announced another year of strong financial performance and operational progress.

We’re running out of superlatives for Next. The British retailer’s profits and sales are growing at a pace as the group improves its brand management, infrastructure and underlying efficiency.

Next’s profit before tax rose 10.1% to £1,011m, surpassing the £1bn mark for the first time.

The retailer has successfully navigated the destruction of the UK high street and the cost-of-living crisis to become a lean, cash-generating fashion retailer with a deep online presence.

Next full price sales rose 5.8% while group sales, including its subsidiaries, jumped 8.2%.

“Next is the envy of the retail sector,” said AJ Bell’s Russ Mould.

“Once again it has upgraded sales and profit guidance, leaving its rivals in the dust. Next is typically a cautious outfit, preferring to under-promise and over-deliver, which makes its latest optimism a surprise given the fragile market backdrop.

“A strategic shift that broadens choice for shoppers is paying off. Next sells its own products directly and through third parties, thereby widening the reach for its goods. Next also sells third party products through its website to boost the chances of site visitors finding something they want and not opening a new tab and looking elsewhere.”

Indeed, Next itself highlighted that it now operates two distinct businesses, its Next brand and associated outlets and platforms, and an aggregation platform that sells external brands.

Its operational success is translating into strong cash generation, which Next intends to return to shareholders in the form of dividends and buy backs.

Next said it plans to return £286m to shareholders in the form of dividends and £316m in buy backs.

Investors loved the news are Next shares were 7% higher at the time of writing.

EDF has selected ITM Power for the plant integration engineering for Phase 1 of the Tees Green Hydrogen project.

The project, located in North East England, is being developed by EDF Renewables UK and Hynamics, a wholly-owned subsidiary of EDF Group.

The engineering package will involve integrating four NEPTUNE II units, ITM Power’s hydrogen fully autonomous electrolyser system.

This announcement follows ITM’s July 2024 statement regarding a capacity reservation for four such units with an unnamed large utility company, which has now been revealed to be Hynamics.

Tees Green Hydrogen is part of the UK government’s Hydrogen Allocation Round 1 (HAR1) and has previously received funding from the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund (NZHF). Hydrogen Allocation Round 1 will support 11 renewable hydrogen projects with total capacity of 125 MW – the Tees Green project is one of them.

ITM said in a statement that the project aims to support local industry and transport decarbonisation efforts by supplying green hydrogen.

“It is a privilege to have been selected by EDF Renewables UK and Hynamics, and we look forward to collaborating with them,” said Dennis Schulz.

Savannah Resources has announced promising assay results from the Barroso Lithium Project, Europe’s largest hard rock lithium deposit.

The initial assay results from Phase 2 of Savannah Resources’ Definitive Feasibility Study drilling programme at the Barroso Lithium Project have confirmed a zone of higher-grade mineralisation at the Pinheiro deposit.

Savannah Resources shares were trading marginally higher at the time of writing.

Works are ongoing. Six drill rigs are currently active across the Pinheiro, Reservatório and Grandão deposits, with 48 holes completed to date, totalling approximately 4,817 metres of the planned 13,000-metre programme.

Lithium assays have been received from 20 holes.

At Pinheiro, recent drilling has revealed pegmatite widths that are thicker and contain higher lithium grades than initially modelled. Notable intersections include 26 metres at 1.40% Li₂O from 70 metres depth and 29 metres at 1.33% Li₂O from 47 metres depth.

These results confirm that mineralisation continues along strike to the north and south in both the Western and Eastern pegmatites.

Activity at the Reservatório deposit has revealed reasonable lithium grades, with significant intersections including 23.1 metres at 1.28% Li₂O from 99 metres depth and 20 metres at 1.06% Li₂O from 127 metres depth. The company said that their findings reinforce confidence in the existing geological model and current JORC-compliant Resource estimate of 4.2 million tonnes at 0.94% Li₂O.

Initial results from Grandão have confirmed shallow mineralisation extensions, with one hole returning 9 metres at 1.38% Li₂O from just 2 metres depth.

“These initial results help to reiterate our confidence in the grades and tonnages of the existing JORC Resource estimates for these orebodies,” said Savannah’s Technical Director, Dale Ferguson.

“Through this drilling, which will significantly increase the database we have, we expect to be able to upgrade much of the existing Inferred Resources into the higher Indicated and Measured categories. This in turn will allow us to capture as much of the resource into the Project’s maiden JORC Reserve statement as possible as part of the DFS study.”

Activity at the project will continue, and Savannah will release further updates in due course.

“The team and I look forward to reporting further results over the coming months as we move towards the production of new JORC Resource estimates for these orebodies as part of Project’s DFS. Busy and exciting times lie ahead for Savannah,” Ferguson said.

The FTSE 100 held onto gains on Wednesday after Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered a Spring Statement that offered more negatives than positives for investors.

London’s leading index had started the session on the front after UK inflation unexpectedly cooled to 2.8%, sending the pound lower against the dollar and providing support for London’s overseas earners. This was the key driver of the FTSE 100’s gains on Wednesday.

Many of Rachel Reeves’ Spring Budget’s headline-grabbing items were widely covered before today’s delivery, so changes to welfare and the NHS were of little consequence to markets.

However, a revised OBR UK growth forecast of just 1% for this year, down from 2%, was a major negative for investors. The FTSE 100 quickly gave up 20 points on the revised forecasts before recovering to trade up 0.2% at the time of writing.

Housebuilders were among the shares most impacted, with Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon, and Barratt Redrow giving up gains and turning negative during the Spring Statement before snapping back.

Notably, the government conceded it wouldn’t hit its prior 1.5m new homes target by revising its forecast of new home construction to 1.3m over the parliament.

Reeves again committed to reforming the planning systems, but this is old news, and investors would have been hoping for more from the Chancellor.

“Reforming the planning system is obviously important,” said Paresh Raja, CEO of Market Financial Solutions.

“However, investors and developers are unlikely to commit to new projects unless they see a strong and growing economy that provides long-term confidence and a return on their investment. The OBR forecasts were a blow in this regard, and the onus must now be on turning the corner to turbo-charge GDP growth.”

BAE Systems pared earlier losses as Reeves outlined plans for the UK to become a defence ‘powerhouse’ and promised to increase defence spending to 2.5% in this parliament.

Shell again contributed to the FTSE 100’s gains on Wednesday, as investors continued to buy into the oil majors after it announced an eye-catching new strategy yesterday.

Imperial Brands was the top faller after releasing a soft trading update and lower profit guidance. Imperial Brands shares were down 3% at the time of writing.

Vistry shares dipped on Wednesday after the house builder revealed the damage caused by costing errors last year, pausing dividends as a result. 

Investors should not be surprised that Vistry has decided to scrap its final dividend after a string of profit warnings last year. Nonetheless, the news wasn’t taken well by the market, and shares were down over 6% at the time of writing.

Cost miscalculations at several sites in the South of England led to dramatic revisions of profit forecasts last year, which were confirmed in today’s full-year results.

“2024 was a year for Vistry investors to forget and by management’s own account, the group significantly underperformed financially in year, with several profit warnings causing the share price to crumble by more than half,” said Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown

Profit before tax sank 35% compared to the prior year’s restated results on an adjusted basis and 64% on a reported basis. The results are nothing short of a catastrophe for the company after they started 2024 so well.

However, that’s now all largely priced in, and a 7% increase in completions will have provided some solace.

Investors would have been keen to see how the company performed in the early part of 2025, and unfortunately, the company’s performance in the first quarter so far has been disappointing.

Sales rates are falling and the order book has shrunk.

“2025 hasn’t got off to the best of starts either, with sales rates down significantly year-to-date as partner-funded transactions have pulled back,” Chiekrie explained.

“More recent government announcements have offered a glimmer of respite from the bad news, with an additional £2bn of funding promised for the affordable housing programme. This aligns well with Vistry’s strategy, which focuses on increasing volumes of affordable housing for UK buyers. Performance is expected to improve as the year progresses, but given its recent series of missteps, management will have to start delivering more good news if they want to rebuild investors’ confidence.”

GenIP shares rose on Wednesday after the Generative AI analytics company announced its second contract within a week.

The company has secured a $65,000 contact with a Singapore research institute following a period of marketing in Southeast Asia. 

Today’s award is part of a wider bid process the company alluded to in a recent update. 

The contract with the Singapore client is far smaller than a deal worth $350,000 with a Saudi Arabian client announced last week, but the ongoing bid process suggests their efforts in Asia may yield further wins before long.

GenIP shares were 11% higher at the time of writing. 

“We are delighted to partner with a leading research and innovation institution in Singapore to accelerate the commercialisation of new technological discoveries,” said Melissa Cruz, CEO of GenIP.

“This collaboration demonstrates the broad application of our technology evaluation services by supporting cutting-edge clinical and healthcare research and innovation. Furthermore, this contract underscores the significant size of the addressable market for our technology commercialisation services.”

In an announcement released in early March, GenIP suggested their pipeline of business could result in a ‘step change’ in revenue.

Although investors will want to see further evidence of this, recent developments would suggest they are well on the way to a material uptick in revenue generation.